ABC crochet

14Jan

Before Christmas, I embarked on a pretty ambitious project for me, involving charts, different yarn colours, letters and motifs.

As you might know, I put together the technical features for Simply Crochet magazine (overseen by their wonderful technical editor, Cara) – sometimes I also make a project to go with the feature and demonstrate some of the techniques talked about in the feature.

For issue 27 (out now), the subject was ‘how to use a crochet chart’ and for the project, I was really keen to do something with letters. We came up with the idea of monogram coasters, which could also be used to personalise garments, such as a pocket for a cardigan.

Crochet letter coasters

These are the first three letters in the alphabet that I crocheted and I’m really pleased with how they’ve turned out. I made crochet charts for the whole alphabet, which you can purchase in my Ravelry shop, here.

After making these three, I was then left with the question of what to do with them. Well, it just so happens that my cousin had a gorgeous little baby boy in June (I mentioned this here) and I thought it would be lovely to create a cube using these letters.

I’m no maths genius, but I quickly realised that I would need to make three more squares to create a cube! So I decided to make a motif to go with each letter…

For A, I thought the yarn colours were perfect for making an apple:

A is for Apple

For B, I made a grey bell on a green background:

B is for bell

For C, I made a car:

C is for car

Aren’t they cute?! I particularly like the car.

I must just mention that it was actually my other half who created the initial charts for these three motifs – I told him what I wanted and he made a rough chart, which I polished up afterwards. It was nice to collaborate and have him take such an interest in my makes!

After some firm blocking (to make the squares more um square), a bit of careful seaming and plenty of stuffing, here’s my finished cube:

Crochet baby cube

As an extra touch, I added a little bell inside the stuffing so it’s a stimulating treat for the ears as well as the eyes and hands. Unfortunately, I didn’t finish it in time for it to be a Christmas gift, but it will be a New Year gift, which I think is a nice way to spread out baby Mitch’s treats (that’s my story, anyway!).

If you’re interested in crocheting your own apple, bell or car motif,and making the cube, you can find the pattern in my Ravelry shop, here.

They use a 4ply yarn (West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4ply in grey and apple), a 3mm hook, and double crochet stitches (US single crochet), to make ‘squares’ that measured 13cm wide and 13.5cm tall.

The possibilities for using these letter and motif charts are near-infinite. I like the idea of crocheting the car in a superchunky yarn to make a really big square for a cushion, mat or lap blanket.

If you do use these charts in your crafting, do let me know – I’d love to see how you get creative with them…

Hi Barbara, thank you, glad you like the pattern. You can work the charts back and forth in rows, or you can work them in the round (but you’ll need to start working each row on the chart from the right-hand side). Hope that makes sense. Let me know what you make! Becky 🙂